Greetings All! I'm usually pretty darn tech-savvy but this has me stumped:
I have a new (01/2013) Dell XPS 8500, 2TB hdd and the 32gb mSATA cache drive, 12GB RAM, Radeon HD 7700, i7, etc.
I Love it 90% of the time, however it will sporadically get really slow and I noticed that even though CPU/Memory/Network usage is well within normal ranges (less than 30-40% at the high end for each), the disk usage will jump up to 100% even if I'm only doing one disk-intensive task. Particularly, though not limited to, it happens when I'm un-RAR'ing a file, using QuickPar to check a binary download, converting a video file, etc.
I've checked Task Manager and its various views and used (or tried) the Process Explorer from Microsoft and I can't seem to find why. I've also tried the Intel Rapid Storage Technology setting for the SSD caching at both "Enhanced" and "Maximize" and have tried disabling/enabling "Windows Write-Cache buffer flushing". No combination seems to fix the problem. It seems to me that it HAS to be something to do with the mSATA/"SSD caching" or some other HDD issue. I don't have any aftermarket defrag software (uninstalled Diskeeper thinking maybe that was an issue), I've tried disk cleanup and running window's defragmenting.
Any suggestions/tips/ideas are MUCH appreciated. THANK!
